A tale of two shelters: A closer look at Bonneville County’s decision to switch animal shelters

IDAHO FALLS — Bonneville County’s recent decision to transfer its animal shelter services contract to Snake River Animal Shelter (SRAS) — ending its agreement with the Idaho Falls Animal Shelter (IFAS) — is raising concern among some animal lovers that county residents will lose access to the city shelter’s Trap, Neuter, Release (TNR), euthanasia and crematorium programs.

“Beginning July 1, all stray animals found or collected outside of Idaho Falls city limits in the unincorporated areas of Bonneville County will be handled at the Snake River Animals Shelter,” the Bonneville County Sheriff’s Office announced in a news release.

SRAS currently holds the animal shelter service contracts for unincorporated Bonneville County, the city of Ammon, Ucon and Iona.

Bonneville County Sheriff Sam Hulse said the change was brought about in a desire to be fiscally responsible and lower costs for its animal shelter program.

In fiscal year 2022, the county had 330 total impounds, and in fiscal year 2021, it brought in 350 impounds, he reported.

“We were looking at what’s our opportunities here to to create some savings. … I actually gave one of my deputies the responsibility to go out and assess where we were at with the animal shelter and to look at what other options were out there,” Hulse said.

Bonneville County’s previous agreement with the IFAS extended back at least 54 years to a memorandum signed in 1970.

But the Sheriff said costs kept increasing, and Snake River Animal Shelter’s bid for an initial contract of $150,000 annually came in $46,000 less than the Idaho Falls Animals Shelter’s offer.

SRAS recently opened a brand-new, 1,200-square-foot K-9 Academy training facility in May, freeing up space for seven new kennels.

“We have space now to ensure that we are still continuing with our primary mission of helping individuals who need to surrender their pets to us, while also take taking care of our local residents’ lost and found animals as well,” said SRAS Executive Director Michelle Ziel-Dingman.

Currently, SRAS offers 31 kennels. In 2022, it had 1,007 intakes of cats and dogs and 946 adoptions.

IFAS provides 22 regular dog kennels, 6 quarantine kennels and 24 cat kennels. Last year, at the Idaho Falls Animals Shelter, 1,247 dogs were impounded — 515 of these were adopted (41%), 663 (53%) were reclaimed, 52 were transferred (4%) 10 were euthanized (1%) and seven had other live outcomes. Similarly, 890 cats were impounded — 576 of these were adopted (64%), 41 were reclaimed (5%), 171 were transferred (20%), 92 were euthanized or died at the vet (10%) and 10 had other live outcomes (1%).

Both shelters are “no kill” shelters.

‘Apples and oranges’?

On May 31, the Bonneville County Commissioners and Hulse sent a letter to the City of Idaho Falls and the IFAS, providing 30 days notice that their previous agreement would be terminated.

But Lynn Alderson, a retired veterinarian with 38 years experience who works one day a week at the IFAS, said that comparing the two organization’s budgets is “compar(ing) apples to oranges.”

“There’s no way (SRAS) can do that cheaper on a per animal basis,” she said.

Alderson said the city shelter provided a highly-effective Trap, Neuter, Release program that captured, fixed and released feral cats to keep down the wild cat population in the county and city. That program is not included in the county’s current contract with SRAS.

Last year, 552 feral cats were trapped. Of these, 531 were neutered/spayed and released (96%); 9 cats had already been fixed and were vaccinated, microchipped, ear tipped and returned (2%); and 12 were euthanized (2%).

The Idaho Falls Animals Shelter also offered discounted rates for pet cremation and euthanasia services that are not included in SRAS’s new contract for county residents.

“The questions came up, well, is it the same level of service? There’s folks that have different concerns,” Hulse said. “My point would be, ‘Hey, let us do this for a minute.’ Snake River, to our knowledge, is doing a fantastic job.”

Responding to the concerns, Ziel-Dingman said the county gets to determine the level of service it wants to provide.

“The entity who contracted our services gets to choose how taxpayer dollars are spent. We do not,” she wrote in an email to EastIdahoNews.com. “I will add that in recent discussions, I’m happy to report that Bonneville County is open to assisting us with TNR costs!”

She also added that her shelter is currently looking to hire a full-time veterinarian, train a euthanasia tech and will implement a “very robust TNR program once we have a full time vet hired.”

In the interim, “We have been TNRing cats, as many as we can for the past year, and that’s cats from all over the area. … We do have a fully functional surgical suite and vet clinic within our facility with two surgical tables, two surgical lights,” she said. “We can do between 30 and 40 spay and neuter surgeries a day right here within our clinic.”

But Alderson worries there is a national veterinarian shortage and says SRAS’s advertised wage of $90,000-$100,000 annually is not competitive with private clinics.

Alderson is also concerned that the new contract was never put out for bid. She believes it is a conflict of interest that Snake River Animal Shelter is acquiring these contracts at the same time its executive director, Ziel-Dingman, serves on the Idaho Falls City Council.

Ziel-Dingman responded directly to these concerns, saying all of the city’s financial information is publicly available.

“A legal conflict of interest is that I would have to make a vote that created money in my pocket,” she said. “I have made zero votes as a City Council member related to any of these things. I’m not the police liaison, so I have not been privy to any council liaison conversation related to any of these issues with Chief (Bryce) Johnson.”

Hulse agreed that there was no conflict of interest in the agreement.

“We’re bidding with the entity of Snake River, not the individuals,” he said. “So I understand that they have a separate governing board, and that’s who we’re bidding with.”

Bonneville County Commissioner Roger Christensen also confirmed that services contracts don’t have to be bid out.

Ziel-Dingman said Snake River Animal Shelter is excited to be able to provide quality shelter services to the county.

“We feel like we are getting paid a fair value, you know, a fair rate for the services that we’re providing. We’re very comfortable with that,” she said.

With the savings from the contract, Bonneville County intends to hire a new animal control officer.

“They’ve only had two animal control officers to handle the whole county, and they had requested the new one,” Christensen said.

Impacts on the Idaho Falls Animal Shelter

Idaho Falls Police Department Deputy Chief Jeremy Galbreaith said the cancellation of Bonneville County’s contract with the city animal shelter came as a surprise.

“Our contract was for just under $200,000, and so that’s lost revenue,” he said.

As a result, the IFAS will initially lose two full-time animal control officer positions in April 2025. The shelter is also cutting back on 60% of hours for its part-time staff.

“This hurt the city of Idaho Falls and hurt the animal shelter. We’re scrambling to be able to recover. It was a significant loss,” Idaho Falls Police Chief Bryce Johnson said. “… My best projection is that through attrition we’ll be able to to have that reduction, and there will certainly be more positions lost going forward.”

Currently, the shelter employs eight full-time animal control officers, a TNR employee and a manager.

“The idea is whatever extra capacity we have in the meantime would be repurposed to more code enforcement,” Johnson said.

The department also cut the shelter’s overhead costs by 30%.

“Our shelter is now taking care of Idaho Falls residents and Idaho Falls animals only,” Idaho Falls Police Department spokeswoman Jessica Clements said.

If the Idaho Falls City Council passes a new fee schedule, county residents may be able to use the city’s crematorium starting Oct. 1 at a higher rate because the service cannot be subsidized by city taxpayers. However, euthanasia will not be offered to county residents because it’s too time intensive, Johnson said.

The shelter currently charges $35 for euthanasia compared to about $80 at most veterinarians, Galbreaith said, though those rates will be increasing.

“The TNR program will continue in the city, but there haven’t been any sort of conversations as far as providing that service for the county,” Galbreaith confirmed.

Additionally, the city of Idaho Falls is moving forward with plans to contract the Idaho Falls Animal Shelter out to a Humane Society or similar organization, Johnson said.

That decision was based on the recommendation of an International Association of Chiefs of Police report presented to the Idaho Falls City Council on March 25 and had nothing to do with the loss of the county’s contract.

Most cities in the United States do not operate their own shelter, Johnson said.

“We will be looking at the possibilities of contracting with someone to do shelter and (animal) services for us. There should be a request for qualifications that go out sometime in the next short while for any vendor that would want to bid on that potential,” he said.

Moving forward, serving animals

In the interim, both SRAS and IFAS are focused on their missions and providing their core services.

“We’ve been highly successful in reuniting, by the way, and 10 days (into) our contract, right now, we have one Bonneville County stray in the building,” Ziel-Dingman said. “It’s got eight applicants on it … and will be adopted by the end of today.”

“I can tell you that our staff are wonderful,” Clements said. “They care a great deal about the animals. … We’re quite proud of the services that they provide, and we expect that to continue.”

Clements emphasized that the two shelters have a complimentary relationship.

“It’s well-known in the shelter world that different shelters, humane societies, anyone that’s in the animal world, we have to work together,” she said.